Hello. I believe, there are some things (that I have no idea how most of them anyone could fix without destroying game) that can scare of new players.
I love Gwent. Right now I believe, that this is best card game on the market, at least for me. I don't want complain. I want more players playing it, more players putting money here, so all of us would have more fun.
I was in Gwent for a short while in closed beta, for a long while on open beta (few months) through start of homecoming (month or two), and I came back just few weeks ago. I had problems with accommodation for changes (almost all meta decks from year and a half are dead, lots of new cards, old cards work in different way) but I loved changes, believe there was really good work done with new cards! From over one year perspective I would tell you, this game looks better and more consistent. I see some balance problems, but still there is lower difference between first tier second, second, third and even honorable mentions than before. And meta change fast enough!
I write this part above, because would love to hear your constructive feedback and other problems, naively believing, that someone from Gwent team will read it and actually make game more new user friendly than before, thanks to us. I wouldn't like to change this thread into constant complaining how bad this game is (I think it's great!).
I guess, time forshort (actually they turned up long) comments?
ad 1. Witcher 3 made me play gwent, while playing gwent I tried a few others more or less popular card games on market (Heartstone, Duel Link,at least 2 others I don't remeber). Gwent was different, and few main differences made me like it more. Some of them stay here (like the idea of wining 2 rounds, not "doing most damage" etc! Great), some left.
a) At beta you were building bronze synergy. Silver, gold cards where additions, your tech choices, 1 or 2 were important for deck, other 2 or 3 just "had to have" for each faction deck, few you could swap with another with really small change of deck power. It was different than hearthstone (and others), it was fresh idea, it had positive and great consequences, at least for me. It was main reason i was recommending it.
b) Other games have lots of ways to clear enemy board. Who stay on board, win the game. You desperately try to stay on board while clear enemy. IF you are able to make it like 2 units against 0 in enemy side, it's usually combo spiral noone can stop. Beeing on "nothing on board" side of game, it's depressing. Now in Gwent sometimes i got this "destroy enemy board". NG poison/block/banish (blocked units i not fun, so sort of not on board, if you know hat i mean). NR clear board with Philippa 10 dmg blind fury, 6 dmg falibor, 8 dmg borbandment (siege) + 2x 8 dmg borbandment from hand, kill any unit with Prince Anséis combo, siege machines... Right now it's still ok, sometimes it's dominate, but other type of decks still works! But we are to close to cross this line in my opinion.
ad. 2. New player need time to adjust, to craft his first meta deck, quite fast you reach the ranking level you can't fight against with cheap decks. Other games give lot and I mean a lot single player stuff to keep player around. In gwent you still need a lot of time to be competitive, but you don't have other things than losing on ranked to do (yes, arena, I was doing a lot of arena in my old times! It's great for new, but now really random with so many cards I think).
ad. 3. Yes, right now, it's raining with reward points, gold per game, kegs. Good players can, from new account get to pro within one season easy. Still for new player getting competitive deck is a lot of scraps, a lot, especially since you need so many 800 scraps specific golds. In beta, while you were building deck form bottom, you needed 4 golds, and usually 2 could be almost random without losing too much of deck power.
ad. 4. I came back after more than a year, crying internally "I missed Masters! That was one most important Gwent thing i wanted to see!". Well... I didn't miss it. For real?! We were one challenger away from masters, and I still can see it? I mean, thank you, but something is wrong.
I guess they fixed problem and now we will get 1 open every 2 months. GREAT DECISION (I think).
ad. 5. I love to daydream about being pro and winning things. Well... 10 000 $ prize pool leaves not so much to daydream about. Also I don't think pro players will be too pro with this prize pool. It's a lot of money for me, of course! But still for best players, full prize pool at 10k?
ad. 6. Getting daily crowns in beta even with bad games was quite fast. Now, new player, without meta decks, who need gold from reward points, on the ranked level when he lose all he need (if no luck) up to 2 hours to get his first reward threshold. Doing it daily is no longer a thing, I can't guarantee myself to do daily. We know that players playing every day are good players, usually spending money on vanities.
ad. 7. I came back, and knowing everything, I needed a week to get basic idea what's happening, and I was playing a lot. I can't imagine for new player. In many card games this enormous number of cards just block me from the start.
Of course it's great to have many card games, but will it grow forever? Heartstone had this thing, that in ranked only last 3 expansion mattered. I would be so sad to "lose" all gold I invested in expansion to just see it be available only for seasonal or something, same time I really think it was good move of heartstone. As a new player you need to invest "only" into basic + 3 expansion, not basic + 40 expansion, and I really wish Gwent to have 10+ years as good card game.
ad 8. There are only few people here, I see same people over and over again. It usually scare new players, because it means that card game is almost dead and noone is playing it...
ad 9. What usually also scares me, is no or almost no communication with developing team. I don't want invest time into something dead. And how I can believe that something will be alive, if there is no exchange of views on topic like "ask your dev". We have "last week in gwent" (thank you Burza, your doing great work even if you are already bored and tired of it). On the other hand, making gwent open prizes that much smaller and cutting hours of people talking with us on forum seems like desperate measure. Sometimes that makes me feel like this project is fully scrapped and marked as failed.
I get it, there is so much lower interest in any type of card games and it doesn't depend on the card game, just less money on the market.Less money, worse content, lower prizes, etc. But it looks like downward spiral. I'm sure after witcher serial "we" had some new players coming to gwent. My did we pinned them down here? Did they stay? We have really small player base right now, rising it tenfold wouldn't be too much. Same time, if you have million players, losing one is ok, but if few thousand active players, one is lot.
- Starting at Homecoming, Gwent is to similar to other card games.
a) You build it from top to bottom.
b) Right now, to many meta decks just clear your board. - No single player campaigning.
- Meta deck = weeks of playing for new players, another months to have from each faction, and meta change by this time.
- Rare official pro gwent tournaments (last year, now i see it's better).
- Low prizes for official tournaments.
- Long one game.
- There is too much cards to get idea of what is happening for weeks
- This forum is not that alive and populated.
- "Ask dev" and other things showing someone care for this game are silent here.
I love Gwent. Right now I believe, that this is best card game on the market, at least for me. I don't want complain. I want more players playing it, more players putting money here, so all of us would have more fun.
I was in Gwent for a short while in closed beta, for a long while on open beta (few months) through start of homecoming (month or two), and I came back just few weeks ago. I had problems with accommodation for changes (almost all meta decks from year and a half are dead, lots of new cards, old cards work in different way) but I loved changes, believe there was really good work done with new cards! From over one year perspective I would tell you, this game looks better and more consistent. I see some balance problems, but still there is lower difference between first tier second, second, third and even honorable mentions than before. And meta change fast enough!
I write this part above, because would love to hear your constructive feedback and other problems, naively believing, that someone from Gwent team will read it and actually make game more new user friendly than before, thanks to us. I wouldn't like to change this thread into constant complaining how bad this game is (I think it's great!).
I guess, time for
ad 1. Witcher 3 made me play gwent, while playing gwent I tried a few others more or less popular card games on market (Heartstone, Duel Link,at least 2 others I don't remeber). Gwent was different, and few main differences made me like it more. Some of them stay here (like the idea of wining 2 rounds, not "doing most damage" etc! Great), some left.
a) At beta you were building bronze synergy. Silver, gold cards where additions, your tech choices, 1 or 2 were important for deck, other 2 or 3 just "had to have" for each faction deck, few you could swap with another with really small change of deck power. It was different than hearthstone (and others), it was fresh idea, it had positive and great consequences, at least for me. It was main reason i was recommending it.
b) Other games have lots of ways to clear enemy board. Who stay on board, win the game. You desperately try to stay on board while clear enemy. IF you are able to make it like 2 units against 0 in enemy side, it's usually combo spiral noone can stop. Beeing on "nothing on board" side of game, it's depressing. Now in Gwent sometimes i got this "destroy enemy board". NG poison/block/banish (blocked units i not fun, so sort of not on board, if you know hat i mean). NR clear board with Philippa 10 dmg blind fury, 6 dmg falibor, 8 dmg borbandment (siege) + 2x 8 dmg borbandment from hand, kill any unit with Prince Anséis combo, siege machines... Right now it's still ok, sometimes it's dominate, but other type of decks still works! But we are to close to cross this line in my opinion.
ad. 2. New player need time to adjust, to craft his first meta deck, quite fast you reach the ranking level you can't fight against with cheap decks. Other games give lot and I mean a lot single player stuff to keep player around. In gwent you still need a lot of time to be competitive, but you don't have other things than losing on ranked to do (yes, arena, I was doing a lot of arena in my old times! It's great for new, but now really random with so many cards I think).
ad. 3. Yes, right now, it's raining with reward points, gold per game, kegs. Good players can, from new account get to pro within one season easy. Still for new player getting competitive deck is a lot of scraps, a lot, especially since you need so many 800 scraps specific golds. In beta, while you were building deck form bottom, you needed 4 golds, and usually 2 could be almost random without losing too much of deck power.
ad. 4. I came back after more than a year, crying internally "I missed Masters! That was one most important Gwent thing i wanted to see!". Well... I didn't miss it. For real?! We were one challenger away from masters, and I still can see it? I mean, thank you, but something is wrong.
I guess they fixed problem and now we will get 1 open every 2 months. GREAT DECISION (I think).
ad. 5. I love to daydream about being pro and winning things. Well... 10 000 $ prize pool leaves not so much to daydream about. Also I don't think pro players will be too pro with this prize pool. It's a lot of money for me, of course! But still for best players, full prize pool at 10k?
ad. 6. Getting daily crowns in beta even with bad games was quite fast. Now, new player, without meta decks, who need gold from reward points, on the ranked level when he lose all he need (if no luck) up to 2 hours to get his first reward threshold. Doing it daily is no longer a thing, I can't guarantee myself to do daily. We know that players playing every day are good players, usually spending money on vanities.
ad. 7. I came back, and knowing everything, I needed a week to get basic idea what's happening, and I was playing a lot. I can't imagine for new player. In many card games this enormous number of cards just block me from the start.
Of course it's great to have many card games, but will it grow forever? Heartstone had this thing, that in ranked only last 3 expansion mattered. I would be so sad to "lose" all gold I invested in expansion to just see it be available only for seasonal or something, same time I really think it was good move of heartstone. As a new player you need to invest "only" into basic + 3 expansion, not basic + 40 expansion, and I really wish Gwent to have 10+ years as good card game.
ad 8. There are only few people here, I see same people over and over again. It usually scare new players, because it means that card game is almost dead and noone is playing it...
ad 9. What usually also scares me, is no or almost no communication with developing team. I don't want invest time into something dead. And how I can believe that something will be alive, if there is no exchange of views on topic like "ask your dev". We have "last week in gwent" (thank you Burza, your doing great work even if you are already bored and tired of it). On the other hand, making gwent open prizes that much smaller and cutting hours of people talking with us on forum seems like desperate measure. Sometimes that makes me feel like this project is fully scrapped and marked as failed.
I get it, there is so much lower interest in any type of card games and it doesn't depend on the card game, just less money on the market.Less money, worse content, lower prizes, etc. But it looks like downward spiral. I'm sure after witcher serial "we" had some new players coming to gwent. My did we pinned them down here? Did they stay? We have really small player base right now, rising it tenfold wouldn't be too much. Same time, if you have million players, losing one is ok, but if few thousand active players, one is lot.
